


the steady warmth of belonging

by cinderfell



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, New Homes, Plans For The Future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 09:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10613886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cinderfell/pseuds/cinderfell
Summary: And it’s easy, Vex thinks. It’s so easy to imagine them like this: days, weeks, months,yearsfrom now, curled up in front of the fireplace together.





	

The news reaches Vex midway through a late breakfast, passed on by a guard. It comes with a summons by Cassandra down to the manor itself, and Vex shovels her eggs and ham into her mouth quickly enough that she almost feels sick.  


It doesn’t sit well in her stomach as she walks down the winding path towards the town and the manor, her nerves mixing rather poorly with the scarfed-down food. It’s not… bad nerves. It’s something-new-holy-shit nerves, which rests funnier in her than the bad kind.

She’s a little bit light-headed by the time she reaches the manor-- _her_ manor-- and when she gets there, both Cassandra and Percy are waiting for her, chatting absently as they stand in the doorway. Cassandra notices her approaching first, elbowing Percy in the side to get his attention.

“So,” Vex says slowly as she walks up, gaze climbing up the two stories that make up the building before shifting to the glimpse of the inside just beyond the two siblings. “It’s done.”

“It’s done,” Percy confirms, adjusting the collar of his coat.

Cassandra opens the door a little wider. “Let’s take a tour, shall we?”

Vex takes a deep breath and complies, stepping into the house with the de Rolos flanking her.

It’s… fuck, it’s beautiful. Wide, open rooms with light filtering in through the windows. Dark blue walls just like she’d asked for, the floors a beautiful dark wood. It’s barren of furniture, but she expected that-- and besides, it doesn’t do anything to dampen the pure awe she feels as she looks at all of this and realizes that she _owns_ this. All of it.

Cassandra waves her hand as she guides the two of them through the empty house, pointing out rooms. “There’s a small kitchen in here, and I’m sure we could arrange to reassign a few cooks here for you if you want. Otherwise, you can continue coming up to the castle for meals and use this at your own free will. Oh, and just down the hall here--”

Vex trails behind the younger woman, her head spinning as she struggles to keep up with Cassandra, her eyes frantically darting between the places she has pointed out to her as the three of them make their way through the halls and, eventually, up the stairs to the second floor.

So, realistically, Vex has known this place would be rather large. She’s been inside one of these manors before, and although it isn’t identical and hers had to be rebuilt from the ground up, the foundation is still the same for the most part. So… it’s a big house. Which isn’t a problem, but-- well, the last time Vex lived somewhere even close to this big, save for the Keep which she shares and the castle where she doesn't technically _live_ , she was a teenager in Syngorn, but even that house wasn’t as big, and on top of that it wasn’t hers. Sure, she lived there, but only in the sense that she existed there more often than not.

But this? This house? It’s hers. It’s big and beautiful and it’s all _hers_. And, honestly, she’s not sure how to deal with that.

Percy falls into step beside her and elbows her lightly in the side. “Vex’ahlia? Are you alright, dear? You look a little out of it.”

She laughs and it feels like she’s swimming inside her own head, the sound coming out a little delirious. “I’m wonderful! I’m just processing all of this.”

He arches an eyebrow at her but smiles nonetheless, lifting an arm and offering it to her. She grins back, placing her hand at the crook of his elbow and taking another step closer to him so she bumps against his side as they walk.

Cassandra, used to dealing with the two of them by now, doesn’t pause in her demonstration of the house, now walking a dozen paces in front of them until she comes to a stop at the end of the hall. She props open the door with her hip and turns to them as they catch up to her. “And this is your bedroom.”

Vex flicks her eyes between the two siblings before letting go of Percy’s arm. Shifting past Cassandra so she can stick her head into the room, her eyes go wide as she looks in on it.

It’s a larger room than the one she has at Greyskull Keep, larger than the one she’s been living out of up at the Castle-- well, when her and Percy aren’t staying in his room. It’s smaller than his room, but that’s not something to turn her nose up at. A fireplace sits at the far end of the room, a large window on the other.

It’s… it’s breathtaking, honestly.

“It’s still unfurnished like the rest of the house, as you can see, but in the next few days we can start moving down some of the basics down for you.” Cassandra glances at Vex, taking in her open-mouthed awe with a small smirk. “I’ll leave everything beyond that to you. I’m sure you’ll be able to haggle some poor merchant down for furniture and other… _trinkets_.”

Her smirk grows slightly at her own little joke, and normally Vex would comment but right now she’s a little busy being struck speechless by her new home, as barebones as it may be at the moment.

Cassandra has heard the stories; some from Vex, some from Percy and the rest of Vox Machina. Hells, Cassandra has even gotten the result of one such story: a beautiful ornamental dagger with sapphires inlaid in the hilt. Vex would be lying if she said she hadn’t nabbed it specifically to impress Cass, partially because she’s her boyfriend’s younger sister and partially because Vex _technically_ owes fealty to her.

Even Cassandra had been impressed when she learned how much Vex had haggled down the merchant she bought the dagger off of.

Vex opens her mouth to reply but finds no words, instead turning her wide brown eyes onto Cass. Wordlessly, she grabs Cassandra into an embrace. The younger woman makes a muffled sound of protest and stiffens as Vex buries her face in her shoulder (like her older brother, Cassandra stands nearly a foot taller than Vex despite being almost ten years younger) and squeezes her tight. After a moment, Cassandra relaxes against her and awkwardly reaches a hand up to pat Vex on the back.

She hears Percy snort behind them.

“Ah, well, thank you, Vex’ahlia,” Cassandra says with a little cough before gently taking Vex by the shoulders and untangling herself from Vex’s grasp. “I didn’t really do anything worthy of an embrace, however. I just made sure the construction went the way it was supposed to.”

Vex shakes her head rapidly, licking over her bottom lip. “Gods, it doesn’t matter, I’m just-- I’m just extremely excited and-- and--” She gestures vaguely from Cassandra to the empty bedroom. Realizing she isn’t going to be making any decent explanations beyond that, she gives up entirely and brushes by Cass and into the room.

She lets her feet carry her into the center and she stops when she gets there, looking around at her surroundings. She can just imagine it: a desk in the corner, a beautiful bed with silk sheets and blue blankets, flowing white curtains covering the large window. A plush blue rug right in front of the fireplace. A bookshelf filled to the brim-- wait, no. _Two_ bookshelves. Maybe three, and that’s not counting the others scattered throughout the rest of the house.

Her, laying on the rug with Trinket as she brushes through his fur.

Percy, sitting at the desk in the corner working through papers or sketching in his notebook.

Them, curled together in bed while he runs his fingers through her loosened braid in that way that makes all the tension leave her body.

(And a small part of her-- a tiny, secret part of her-- sees a little girl with brown hair like Cassandra and the portraits of young Percy, with tiny ears that are just slightly pointed and dark eyes that scan the pictures of a book she has open on the floor of the bedroom. Her and Percy, sitting cross-legged next to her and taking turns reading aloud to her--)

“Well,” Cassandra starts from behind her, sending thoughts of this room and that girl scattering, “if that’s all, I have work to attend to up in the castle still. I’ll leave the rest of this to you two. Percival, Vex’ahlia.”

“Of course. Thank you, Cass,” Percy says.

The telltale click-clack of Cassandra’s shoes against the floor alert her to the young woman’s departure. After a moment she hears the door close and the heavier footsteps of Percival coming up behind her. He appears at her side, glancing around the empty room before settling on her face.

“So,” he starts, “how are you feeling?”

“Spend the night with me,” she says suddenly, ignoring his question completely as she turns to face him.

“What?” Percy asks, blinking rapidly at her before looking around at the barren house.

“Spend the night here with me,” she tells him, suddenly filled with boundless energy as she begins practically bouncing on her heels. She takes his hand with hers.

“I mean, it’s not like I’d be opposed to spending the night with you, as you’ve probably guessed by now, however…” He gestures vaguely around the room. “Vex, it’s like Cassandra said. There’s no furniture in this house right now. Well, ah, I suppose I could see about having the servants at least move down a bed, but--”

“No, no, fuck the furniture,” she says quickly, letting go of him with one of her hands so she can wave it dismissively. “We can just grab some blankets and pillows and camp out on the floor. And it’s not like we haven’t slept in worse places than on the floor of my new but unfurnished house. I mean, we’ve slept in hell.”

“Hell at least had beds,” he responds dryly.

She waves her hand again. “That’s beside the point. The point is, this’ll never happen again, Percy. This house will never be untouched and this new ever again, and that’s… gods, Percy, that’s so exciting to me. Because this is mine and I don’t want to wait for it, you know? I don’t care that I have to sleep on the floor because it’s _mine_ , and that’s something fascinating and terrifying and comforting all at once because a place has never just been _mine_ before. So I want to… experience that, I guess? I’m rambling. Does that make sense?”

Percy’s face scrunches up as he thinks before finally settling on, “Kind of? I mean, it makes enough sense for me.”

“So you’ll stay with me?” Vex says through a big grin.

Percy sighs good-naturedly. “Have I ever been able to say no to you, my dear?”

She grabs him by the front of his shirt, stands up on her tiptoes, and yanks him down the rest of the way so she can plant one on him.

They both attend to their business throughout the rest of the day. Percy excuses himself to his room so he can go through some paperwork Cassandra left for him while Vex goes through hunting reports in the library. The work does little to dull the energy coursing through her veins like electricity, winding her up and making it hard to think of anything else besides the repeating thought of _my home, my home, my home_.

By the time evening rolls around and Percy finds her in the library with blankets tucked under an arm and pillows under the other, a bottle of wine in one hand, she’s practically ready to burst. She packs away her work as quickly as possible and sends it off to be filed properly before running across the library and nearly tackling him. He simply laughs, handing off the pillows to her before they begin their trek down to the house.

( _Her_ house. _Her_ home. And fuck, she doesn’t think she’ll get used to thinking that, doesn’t think she’ll ever lose the joy and sense of belonging that fills her at just the thought of those words.)

They lay down the blankets and pillows in her empty bedroom and stoke a fire in the fireplace before settling down in front of it, Vex tucking herself snug against his side while he wraps an arm around her. They drink, because of course they do. They always drink when there’s something big, and this is, objectively, big. The wine is dark and sweet-- but not nearly as sweet as the way Percy looks at her as she takes a drink, the blue of his eyes almost lilac in the low light.

“This is nice,” he says softly after a few moments of silence, save for the crackling of wood burning.

She nudges him in the side with her elbow. “I told you it would be.”

“You did,” he agrees, swaying slightly at her gentle nudge before letting himself fall onto his back with a huff. “I think I understand what you were trying to say earlier now.” He gestures around at the room. “You know, about how this place will never be this way again and how that’s special, and about wanting to experience this because it’ll never happen again.”

She sets the wine off to the side and lays back next to him. “Well, I’m glad I wasn’t just talking nonsense then. I was, uh, a little delirious from just getting handed my own manor.”

He laughs, reaching up to muss his white hair. “That’s perfectly understandable.” After a moment, he asks, “Did you ever think you’d have something like this? A house of your own, I mean.”

“Honestly? No. But I’m just glad to be breaking this house in with you,” she says with a grin, and Percy smiles fondly back at her.

“It’s always a pleasure, dearest,” he replies, and his voice is so earnest and real that she feels something warm blossom inside of her. She rests a hand on his chest, right over his heart, and breathes in deeply at the feeling of it beating steady beneath her.

And it’s easy, Vex thinks. It’s so easy to imagine them like this: days, weeks, months, _years_ from now, curled up in front of the fireplace together. It’s easy to imagine him at her side even then, perhaps even grayer than now (maybe his sideburns and scruff and his heavy eyebrows will follow the rest of the snow-white shock of hair on his head in the future), and with the golden glow still in her chest whenever she looks at him.

She clears her throat.

“ _So_ , speaking of breaking this house in,” she drawls, walking her fingers up his chest until her hand sits at the curve of his neck. Percy raises an eyebrow at her and shoots her a knowing look. With a wry grin, she rolls until she’s straddling him, resting her hands on his chest. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in helping me cross another thing off my to-do list when it comes to this house?”

“What’s the thing we’re crossing off?” he asks, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards as he tries and fails to suppress a grin of his own.

“It’s funny, it just says ‘Percival’.”

“How peculiar.”

“How peculiar indeed.”

“This blanket is very thin and I’m probably going to get splinters,” Percy complains with a smile, even as he rests a hand on her cheek and lets the fingertips of his other ghost across the skin just beneath the hem of her shirt.

“No you won’t. But if you do, think of them as memories,” Vex says.

Percy’s response is to curl the hand on her cheek around so he’s cupping the back of her neck, fingers tangled in the dark strands of hair that have fallen loose from her braid, before yanking her down and kissing her. She laughs when he does, and he echoes her low and happy,

It fills the empty home and she can’t help but hope that it’s the first of many.


End file.
